


The Secret (translated from Russian)

by Woland



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Dark Crowley (Good Omens), Hopeful Ending, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Translation from Russian, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 21:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20442554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woland/pseuds/Woland
Summary: Crowley is beautiful when he sleeps. His eyes that are usually full of icy cold and disdain are now closed, his features soften – and Aziraphale can almost see the former Crowley looking back at him with a tender smile.  Crowley who didn’t enjoy needless sacrifice, didn’t approve of Hell’s methods, didn’t want Armageddon to come to pass.





	The Secret (translated from Russian)

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [The Secret](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20418803) by [sad_cypress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sad_cypress/pseuds/sad_cypress). 

> This story is a translation of the "The Secret" by sad_cypress. Warning from the original author: ANGST. Sooo much angst.

Crowley is beautiful when he sleeps. His eyes that are usually full of icy cold and disdain are now closed, his features soften – and Aziraphale can almost see the former Crowley looking back at him with a tender smile. Crowley who didn’t enjoy needless sacrifice, didn’t approve of Hell’s methods, didn’t want Armageddon to come to pass. Crowley with the hair the color of flame and with enormous wings, whose black feathers danced iridescently in the light. It was only later that Aziraphale found out that only very few demons possess such wings.

  
Then, again, Crowley has always been special.

  
This Crowley is completely different: his hair turned black, his wings became the same as they are for all the other demons – featherless and webbed. Hostile-looking.

  
Aziraphale shifts carefully in bed, trying not to wake Crowley, and closes his eyes. He tries to concentrate on getting rid of the pain that wracks his entire body while leaving behind the marks left by claws, the bruises and the bites. Once – the very first time – he hid those marks as well, and Crowley got angry at him for it.

  
_“Are you embarrassed by them, wag-feather? Don’t even think about any miracles. My personal angel,” he said the word with the kind of repulsion that Aziraphale never heard from him before, and it was, perhaps, then that he finally understood the meaning that his Crowley used to assign to it, “shall remain marked.” _  
_ After that Crowley brought all the marks back. He didn’t miracle them back either, no. He used his fists and his teeth. And afterwards Aziraphale didn’t see him for several days and didn’t know what he was doing._

_Although, to be fair, he wasn’t really interested. He was sure it was something quite awful that he wouldn’t want to know._

  
He feels empty. He no longer cares what was happening outside the walls of this house. He barely has the strength to keep his own self together, and it's impossible for him to think about the seduced, tormented souls of the mortals that got to experience hell even before their death. Perhaps, if this is all over, he will bring his apologies to humans, will exhaust his limit on miracles in order to fix everything. But now? Even thinking about it feels odd.

  
Will this nightmare ever be over? And how will end? With his ultimate death? Or will he give up and leave?

  
Oh, he could have left. Crowley doesn’t know this, but Aziraphale is free. He could leave while Crowley was out; could even discorporate Crowley – in a fair duel or even while Crowley sleeps, defenseless and calm. “Trusting,” Aziraphale could have even called him, but it would have been a delusion.

Crowley doesn’t trust him. Crowley simply doesn’t take him seriously.

But weren’t these past six months – six months of hoping that all that was happening somehow had meaning – also a delusion?

  
Aziraphale tries not to think about that.

  
They were truly left alone back then, ten years ago, after the Armageddon That Didn’t. Ten years – quite enough time for one to let one’s guard down, even when it comes to immortal beings.  
Aziraphale can’t help a soft smile when he thinks about that time. After all, it’s all he has left. All he has to keep him from breaking.

Those bright sunny moments from their past flit across his memory over and over again.

  
_Here he is, calling Crowley and inviting him to theater. The choice of a play is a compromise: a classical one for Aziraphale, a comedy for Crowley. __  
__“What’s the point if they all die in the end? Thank you, I’ve had enough. You take a mortal; you entice him from the path of virtue. In the end he dies and dooms himself to eternal suffering. You take an infant, and help set up for Armageddon. And then everybody dies in the end,” reasoned Crowley at the time. _

__  
Here, he realizes that they barely spent a day apart after Armageddidn’t, and it’s wonderful. He is still worried that Heaven will find out, but he reminds himself that they are on their own side now, and that’s brilliant. Every day is like a glass of champagne: effervescent and intoxicating. Like those lingering looks from Crowley that – no more self-delusions, he’s done with that! – are filled to the brim with love. _  
__And Aziraphale accepts that love gladly; it’s allowed now after all. He_ _bathes_ _in_ _it__, __can__’__t_ _get_ _enough__. __He asks Crowley to take his glasses off more often, so he can see his eyes. _

_“This is how a rabbit feels in front of a snake,” Aziraphale mused once, entranced and a bit drunk. It was hard to say if his intoxication was due more to the wine or to Crowley’s gaze, which reflected an entire whirlwind of feelings: trust, fondness, hunger, love._

_“Am I hypnotizing you?” Crowley raised his eyebrow at him._

_Aziraphale simply nodded and realized that Crowley moved in closer, and he let the demon take the glass from his hand. And when the demon leaned in to kiss him? _

Aziraphale doesn’t remember. But it doesn’t matter. He remembers how good it felt when Crowley looked at him – so close! – and the only thought running through his head was, “Finally.”

“Who said you could sleep here?”

Aziraphale hears the low, rage-filled voice and startles. He let himself relax too much – that was inexcusable. Crowley knocks him off the bed with a heavy blow, towers over him, tugs painfully on his hair.

“Forgive me, my dear.” Aziraphale’s voice shakes because he realizes his mistake even before he finishes speaking: he no longer has the right to call Crowley that. This right was taken away from him half a year ago, much like Crowley himself.

  
“Watch your damn tongue,” Crowley hisses, backhanding him across the face. He glances at his watch and blesses. “You’re lucky I have business to attend to.”

  
He gets dressed with a snap of his fingers: a sharp gray suit that is nauseatingly similar to the ones Gabriel wore. No more black narrow jeans, no more sunglasses. This new Crowley is not ashamed of his eyes; he loves frightening others, loves his demonic nature.

  
The door slams shut, and Aziraphale leans heavily against the wall. There’s a taste of blood in his mouth from the split lip. 

He’s almost ready to give up.  


_“If something happens, I promise you…,” Crowley trails off, hand tightening into fist. _

_Aziraphale covers his hand with his own and smiles, “I know, my dear, me too.”_

Aziraphale barely refrains from banging his head against the wall – it’s pounding after Crowley’s blow as it is. He can’t give up, he promised. He has one hope left: that he will be able to figure out the plan, will be able to bring back the former Crowley. Yes, that hope was growing dimmer every day, but what kind of angel would he be if he stopped believing?

They never talked about their feelings. They simply started seeing each other more, having more embraces, more kisses, and, eventually, more sex as well. They even decided to move in together without even really planning it with each other.

_“I’m going to move these books. I can’t stand the thought of something happening to them.”_

_“__A_ _library_ _then__?” __Crowley_ _shrugs__. “__A_ _library__, __a_ _greenhouse__, __and_ _an_ _indecently_ _huge_ _bedroom__?”_

_“And an indecently huge bedroom,” Aziraphale nods and smiles. “I was thinking in the countryside.” _

_“I’ll look at the options out there.” _

And a week later they were already stepping across the threshold of a new house – their home. A spacious living room, a magnificent garden (Crowley planted an apple tree in its very center and refused to comment on it), an enormous bed in the master bedroom, and lots of light. It was a house filled with warmth, memories and life: a book left on the coffee table, a sketch of Mona Lisa on the wall, a soft old armchair in Aziraphale’s office, next to a floor lamp, a luxurious throne in Crowley’s office – a new life filled with old habits.

Absently, Aziraphale traces the deep scratches on his thighs and remembers how Crowley would lay with his head on Aziraphale’s lap in the garden, and Aziraphale would run his fingers through his hair and read aloud his favorite passages from books, and Crowley would fall asleep, lulled by tender touches, the sun and the quiet voice.  
He remembers how they used to go to the movies – something about superheroes. Aziraphale never did get into it, so he doesn’t really remember the plot. But he does remember how hard Crowley would squeeze his palm during the most intense moments, and how, after one of the main characters died at the end, he stayed silent all the way home, and Aziraphale thought it was all terribly touching. 

_Crowley laughing, Crowley burying his face in Aziraphale’s neck, Crowley yelling at a fig tree, Crowley typing something furiously on his smartphone, Crowley, Crowley, Crowley…_

  
The images flow one into another, blend in together, and Aziraphale doesn’t even notice as he falls deep asleep.

  
He doesn’t remember what he was dreaming about. The only thing he does remember is the feeling of warmth, strength, and an all-encompassing love – not the one he felt when he was near Crowley, but the one that was always a part of him, the one from which he was created. And a disembodied voice that hasn’t spoken to him in six thousand years, “You can do this.” 

  
Forcing himself to get up, he finds his clothes, strewn across the room, gets dressed and goes to the kitchen to make himself some tea – black and strong, the way Crowley likes it now.

He used to like coffee and alcohol, didn’t eat often but enjoyed his meals, and didn’t smoke. The new Crowley doesn’t eat at all, drinks tea and left several cigarette burns on Aziraphale’s body.  
Aziraphale glances at one of those burns and throws the mug at the wall. Immediately restores it with a miracle.

  
He isn’t angry at Crowley. Perhaps it’s stupid, but sometimes Aziraphale finds himself catching sight of an odd, lost expression on Crowley’s face, as though Crowley was trying to remember something, as though he could sense the deception.  


Aziraphale remembers everything perfectly. And understands.

It doesn’t make this any easier.

  
The punishment that came ten years late. To take away Crowley’s memory, his personality, to rewrite him anew, to turn him into a perfect demon – ruthless and cruel, eager for Armageddon to come. And to make him a gift of an angel for personal use – the angel that single-handedly interfered in the plans of Heaven and Hell. He was told that it’s his reward and his honorable duty to punish the traitor as he sees fit.

Of course, Crowley was proud of that. He knew that he was a very valuable and talented demon. He knew that Downstairs they loved him.

  
Aziraphale’s punishment was to remember everything.

During his good days he can even appreciate the irony of his situation: he wanted to be with Crowley, and they left him with Crowley. 

Aziraphale latches on to the concise, “Forever. Perhaps,” spoken by Michael. He turned her words over and over in his head hundreds of times, and the way she looked away when she rendered the verdict. And he can’t understand if that meant he could count on getting Crowley back? Or if hope is, in fact, his true punishment? He is so desperate that he’s even prepared to trust Michael.

  
He snaps his fingers to keep the tea hot until Crowley comes back, and smiles. He can do this.

  
In the evening he looks at the gleam of the setting sun in Crowley’s black hair, which makes it appear almost red in color. He winces in pain while Crowley snaps open his wings as he pounds into him. He looks at the soft fuzz that covers them, the fuzz that wasn’t there this morning. He freezes when, after it’s all over, Crowley collapses onto the pillow, smiles widely for the first time in six months, and breathes out a barely audible, sleepy, “Angel.”

Aziraphale smiles. He can do this.


End file.
